Throwback, page 4
“I don’t believe I’m asking this.” Lorenzo took a deep breath. He shook his head and muttered something in Italian that sounded like a prayer. “Tell me, Future Boy, does the country survive the War Between the States?”
“It will be called the Civil War,” Corey replied. “And, yes.”
“No joke?” Lorenzo’s left eyebrow arched skeptically.
“Abraham Lincoln signs an emancipation proclamation, the slaves are freed, and the South joins the North as one country. It gets really complicated after that, but . . . yeah.”
The man’s eyes grew moist. “Bless you, big guy,” he said. “Your grandfather is a lucky man.”
6
Leila caught a strange burning smell from the bathroom’s closed door. “Corey, what are you smoking in there?”
She knocked politely, then harder. Corey was not responding.
She’d begun to sweat the moment she put on her Catwoman costume, and this was making things worse. She gripped the doorknob and shook it. “Ready or not, here I come.”
Slowly she opened the door. The light was still on, but Corey was nowhere to be seen. Leila’s eyes focused on the window, which was wide open.
She raced to the window in a panic. He’d been nervous, afraid he was losing his mind. Had he . . . ?
They were only on the second floor. If he had done something awful, he might still be lucky—a broken leg, maybe. Kneeling on the toilet, she stuck her head out the window and looked down. “Corey!” she screamed.
She looked up and down Central Park West, but there was no sign of him.
“Mo-o-o-om, have you seen Corey?” she shouted, running out of the room.
She could hear her mother’s desk chair rolling back on the wood floor of her home office just behind the kitchen. The Sharps’ apartment was long and narrow, with all rooms opening into one long hallway. So it took about two seconds for Jessie Sharp to come padding out of the little room by the kitchen and into the hallway. Leila could tell she’d been up most of the night writing. In her photo for her syndicated newspaper column, Sharp Eyes on Washington, Mom looked like Natalie Portman, all elegant and glamorous and put together. Schlepping out of the office in her purple sweats after a long day, she looked like an extra on The Walking Dead. “Heyyy, the costume looks great, sweetie—”
“Mom, Corey was in the bathroom and now I can’t find him,” Leila said. “Did you see him leave?”
Leila’s mom shook her head. “Nope. I mean, I guess I should have seen him if he did. My office door was open. But maybe not. I’m a little distracted with deadlines. Keep looking, Leila. He might have snuck out to put on his costume. Or he’s hiding, pranking you. You know Corey.”
Leila raced back down the hallway. She opened the small linen closet in the wall next to the bathroom. She pulled back the shower curtain and checked in the cabinet under the sink. Sitting at the edge of the bathtub, Leila looked at her phone, but there were no new texts from him.
That was when she saw the upside-down photo on the bathroom floor. She stooped to pick it up, and she turned it over. It was the black-and-white image she’d had on her windowsill, from Auntie Flora’s collection. She’d seen it a hundred times—the half-finished stone wall, the barren road under construction, the vast and featureless park, the crane.
But something was off.
The construction worker—the guy building the wall—wasn’t in the place she remembered him. In the photo, he’d been kneeling near the center, putting mortar on a block of stone.
Leila’s jaw dropped open. Now, in the photo, the block was resting on the ground. That same worker was sitting on a park bench, talking to a kid.
And the kid looked exactly like Corey Fletcher.
7
On an ordinary day, Corey could run the paths of Central Park with his eyes closed. But not on an ordinary day in 1862. And not without the paths.
He was used to maple trees and squirrels and pigeons. Joggers and bikers and skaters. Old people with walkers, toddlers in strollers. But Central Park in 1862 had none of these. The big reservoir was a dusty field. Everything else was a mix of scraggly bushes, giant rocks, and tree stumps. On the Ninety-Seventh Street transverse road, which cut through the park, horse-pulled carts groaned with the weight of fruits and vegetables. The road was sunken into a wide trench, but on the overpass Corey could look down and see horseback riders weaving in and out like motorbikers. Children ran ahead of their mothers and fathers, laughing, sneaking an apple or two from the carts while their parents weren’t looking. Cart horses bucked, their drivers shaking fists and shouting insults at each other. Corey had to hold his nose against the stink of manure, rotting food, and body odor.
On the other side of the overpass, he ran over hills of chapped soil and scrubby grass. The park was unrecognizable. His favorite willow-shaded lake on the left, close to Central Park West and One Hundredth Street, was a marshy swamp. The baseball fields to his right were a barren plain. But Corey’s eyes were drawn to the dense forest beyond the plain, where trees rose to the sky above a shadowy valley. There, north of One Hundredth Street, the park construction hadn’t yet begun. Soon the landscapers would move in, dynamiting rocks, creating paths, redirecting streams, to make the North Woods.
Now it was just . . . woods. Real woods, not replanted and reshaped by humans.
FIND ME IN THE NORTH WOODS ASAP.
This had to be the place.
Corey followed the streambed into the forest and ran down a slope toward a waterfall. The fog swirled in and out of the pines, and shadows moved among the bushes.
“Papou!” he cried out.
His voice fell flat in the thick fog. At the top of a waterfall, he stopped and looked over the ravine below.
On the left bank, a dark, hooded figure emerged from behind a tree. The person was crouched low to the ground, holding a branch that tapered to a sharp point like a spear.
It could have been Papou, but the face was hidden within the hood’s shadow. Corey stepped off the bridge and onto the sloping bank. As he climbed down toward the stream, the cracking of branches underfoot made the figure look up.
There was no mistaking his grandfather’s eyes. The old man smiled briefly, then held up an index finger to his mouth in a shushing gesture. He pointed toward the bottom of the waterfall. Corey slowed, trying to keep his footfalls silent.
The falls cascaded over a pile of granite boulders to land in a churning pool. The water was rougher than it was in the present, the stream wider. At the base of the waterfall, something moved between the boulders. Something large. With gray, coarse fur.
Corey slowed down. To his right, Papou was edging closer. “Proseche,” he whispered.
Corey’s breath caught in his throat. That was Greek for “be careful”—something Papou said a million times to him when he was a kid. The old man planted his feet and let loose with the stick spear. It hurtled through the air and landed in the stream, inches from its target. Hearing the splash, the creature flinched in its crevice. Branches hid its face from Corey’s sight, but its haunches were wiggling, its legs digging into the muck. Its body was longer than a rat’s, thicker than a beaver’s.
Slowly it moved into sight, its eyes beady and rimmed with red. Its mouth seemed to be drawn into a smile along either side of a long snout. At the base of the snout, two white tusks curved upward like some kind of giant warthog’s.
Its eyes moved from Papou to Corey and back again. “Well, well,” it said. “There are two of you.”
Corey shrieked. He jumped back, tripping over a tangle of branches. His grandfather charged past him, his fist closed around a large, sharp rock. “Run, Corey!” he bellowed.
“It—it . . . ,” Corey stammered.
“Do as I say, paithaki mou!” the old man said. “Turn around and run—now! I will join you!”
Corey sprang to his feet and scrambled up the slope. He ran as fast as he could, pushing aside branches, looking for a path. Further upstream, he spotted a dark figure in the woods. “Hey!” he cried out! “Help!”
He was answered by a gunshot.
Corey leaped back, tumbling down the hill. He managed to stop himself before reaching the water and held himself low to the ground. Had that person just shot at him? What on earth was going on here?
Crawling behind thick bushes, Corey held still. He couldn’t go back and he didn’t want to go forward. He glanced over his shoulder for Papou, but that part of the woods was swallowed in fog. Ahead, the sharp smell of burned gunpowder wafted toward him. A thin blackish plume of smoke rose through the fog into the tree canopies, but the dark figure was on the ground, moaning.
Quietly Corey crept uphill to another set of bushes, then ran behind a thick oak tree. From his vantage point now, he could see a revolver lying on the forest floor. The man’s chest was moving. He was still alive. Instinctively Corey reached into his pocket for his phone, but that wasn’t going to do him much good here.
“Hey!” Corey called out. “Are—are you okay?”
As the body twitched, Corey pocketed his phone and backed away slowly. He could see the face now, a white guy with soot-stained cheeks and bloodshot, steely blue eyes. “You . . . fool,” he murmured. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” Corey asked.
“Shout like that.” The guy was standing now. Patches of unmatched material held his clothes together, and the outfit looked like it hadn’t seen a washing machine in years. “Why did you stop me from what I intended to do?”
“From k-k-killing yourself?” Corey asked.
The young man scooped the gun off the ground. His eyes were wild as he ran forward. Corey backed away but the guy was fast.
“You do it,” he said, shoving the revolver toward him.
“Do what?” Corey asked.
The man forced the gun into Corey’s hand. It was an old-fashioned revolver and felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. “Shoot me!”
“What? No! No!”
The man stepped back, his hands stretched outward. “Do it. From the looks of you, you may be in my place soon.”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Corey said. “I—I don’t live here. Well, I do, technically, but—”
“Are you a rich man’s son?”
“No!”
The guy let out a crazed, wild-eyed laugh. “I didn’t think so. The government paid my parents three hundred and fifty dollars so I could go to war—in the place of some banker’s son. This is how it works, lad. The wealthy buy their way out. Me, I’d rather die here near Montanye’s Rivulet than on a field by a rebel’s musket for another man’s convenience. And that makes me a deserter, boy. Which means it is your duty to shoot me!”
“Papou!” Corey shouted down into the fog.
Behind him, at the top of the slope, came the sound of clopping hooves. The bearded guy trained his eyes upward. Perched on horses, a pair of scowling men with handlebar mustaches came into view along the road above. They wore strapped helmets and tight woolen uniforms with clubs tucked into their belts.
“Excuse me, chaps,” one of them called down, “are you thinking this is perhaps the Oregon Trail? Some grassy plain where buffalo roam and wild gunfire is the order of the day?”
“No, sir,” Corey grumbled.
“Constable Bromley to you, lad,” the man said, “and this is my jolly partner, Constable Moosup.”
Moosup’s face, a shade of orange to begin with, was growing red. His eyes looked ready to spring out of his head. “NAMES!” he demanded.
“Frederick Ruggles,” muttered the young bearded guy.
“Corey Fletcher,” Corey piped up.
“Well then, now that we are acquainted, kindly put that revolver away, Fletcher, and don’t let us hear another shot!” Bromley replied. “Because unless we have frightfully lost our way, this is most certainly New York City. Where hunting is strictly forbidden.”
“NOW!” Moosup bellowed.
Awkwardly Corey shoved the revolver into his pocket. It was a miracle his pants didn’t fall to his ankles. It was even more of a miracle he didn’t shoot his own leg off. “Done,” he said.
Bromley was eyeing Corey intently. “Now then, gentlemen, perhaps you may help us. We are on the way to investigate an incident on the Eighth Avenue, not far from here. Seems a young man, by unlawful entry, compromised the honor and privacy of a young lady in her apartment dwelling. Emerged from the toilet, to be exact. This upsets me very much, but Constable Moosup even more so, as he is . . . erm, familiar with said young lady.”
Moosup growled.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frederick grumbled.
Bromley pulled out a small pocket notebook from his jacket and read from it. “Tall, very thin, perhaps fifteen years of age—”
“Thirteen,” Corey said.
“Oh?” Bromley said.
Moosup’s eyes bore down on Corey like smoldering flames.
“I mean, I’m thirteen!” Corey blurted. “So I couldn’t be the same person who was hiding in the bathroom!”
“You craven little . . .” Moosup hopped off his horse. He looked about seven feet tall. As he stomped down the slope toward Corey, he reached for a wooden club attached to his belt.
Frederick Ruggles moved in front of Corey, blocking his path. “Now see here, Constable Moose Cup!”
As the big man roared, raising the club high over his head, Corey reached into his pocket and pulled out the revolver. He hadn’t the slightest idea how to hold it, let alone use it. But he gripped it tight with both hands and pointed it at the charging constable. “Leave him alone!”
Constable Bromley gasped. Moosup stood frozen with the club aloft.
“That,” Frederick Ruggles said, looking at Corey with astonishment, “may not have been your wisest choice.”
Corey gulped. He felt a pinpoint of heat in the center of his chest. But Moosup was looking at something over Corey’s shoulder.
A sharp crackling of branches came from behind him. Papou. Corey turned, taking his eye from the two constables. In that moment Moosup lunged for him. As Corey tried to pull the revolver away, he felt the weight of the giant man knock him to the ground. With the dexterity of someone smaller and lighter, Moosup snatched away the gun.
Corey rolled and then sprang to his feet, hands in the air. The revolver firmly gripped in both hands, Moosup pointed its barrel at Corey’s forehead. “Yer friend was correct,” he said. “Now do as I say or I’ll . . .”
But his voice trailed off, as his eyes focused on something over Corey’s shoulder.
“Drop that,” snapped a deep, booming voice. It was close behind Corey, and it didn’t sound like Papou.
Corey turned. As a shadow grew in the fog’s whiteness, he stiffened.
“Sweet mother of Goshen . . . ,” Moosup whispered.
Corey had seen the creature before, but as it crawled out of the whiteness Corey’s hair stood on end. The thing was shaped like a warthog but its face was lower to the ground, its legs bent to the sides. Its tusks glistened in the moisture, and drool dripped from either side of its barrel-like snout. It crawled forward steadily, eyes fixed on Moosup, its breath chuffing like a train.
Frederick Ruggles turned and ran up the slope, screaming. Both horses bucked and whinnied. Constable Bromley held tight to his, but Moosup’s went galloping away. “Moosup, run!” Bromley cried out.
Moosup dropped the revolver and backed away. With a roar, the creature leaped. The constable sprang into the air and ran up toward Bromley, who was leaning from the saddle, his hand outstretched.
Bromley’s horse was having none of it and dashed away at a full gallop. Roaring in fear, Moosup sprinted along behind it, down the hill toward One Hundredth Street.
As the creature thundered past Corey, he turned back toward the creek. At the bottom of the slope, Papou emerged from the fog, hurrying toward him. “You did it!” he said, wrapping him in a tight hug.
“Did what?” Corey said. “It was that—that thing. It chased them away.”
“I meant, you wore the belt buckle. I knew you’d find it.”
“Belt? My belt? I wear it all the time, Papou, but what does that have to do with—?”
“Sshhh.” Papou was looking up the hill. Corey could hear the beast snuffling, but it was invisible in the fog.
The two ran back down the hill and along the stream bank, scrabbling over rock outcroppings. They leaped across a narrow part of the stream and up the other bank. “Do you have money?” Papou shouted.
“Money?”
“Coins, paithaki! Something metal from the present time.”
The old man stopped running and turned. Corey reached into his pocket, pulling out fifty-seven cents. “Spare change, yeah, but—”
“Hold tight to it, Corey,” Papou said. “You need that to get back. And you need to go now.”
“Coins . . . the locket . . . the belt buckle . . .” Corey shook his head in wonder and confusion. “Okay. Okay. So that’s the secret to time travel, Papou? Metal?”
“We will talk another time,” Papou said.
“No, we have to talk now! There’s so much I don’t understand. I thought you went to Canada—”
“Corey, you’re in danger. You must go back now.”
“How does it work?” Corey demanded. “Like, hold some metal and, zoom, you’re gone? Or do you have to do something, like click your heels three times and say ‘There’s no place like home’? You have to tell me, Papou. I’m scared!”
A muffled roar sounded from the ravine. A sloppy splash. Two red eyes pierced the gloom like lanterns.
Papou took Corey’s left hand. With his right, Corey grabbed tight to the coins. They burned to the touch, and the sky opened into a burst of harsh white light.
8
Leila’s mom swallowed a mouthful of sausage and pepperoni pizza before commenting on Leila’s photo. “Yes, it does look a lot like Corey. But Corey’s got that kind of face.”
Leila looked up from the photo, which she had placed on the kitchen table. “What does that mean? What kind of face?”
